Muslims calling for the Death of all Athiests.

[kcdodd]

Emotion is essential to reason. We are neural networks not digital computers. But the network must be trained.

Also you might want to revise your whole conventional outlook. I don't believe there is such a thing as addiction. People in chronic pain will chronically do things that relieve it.

Our understanding of the human brain is just beginning. Endocannabinoids are a massive key.

But you do have a point. Religion which makes chemicals denigrates people who short circuit their process and just ingest them. Why join a sect, follow the rituals and hope for results when you can just take a pill? Results being much more probable with less effort with the pill.

What do you call it if the chronic pain is caused by not getting the drug you are supposedly using to relieve the chronic pain? If you never started in the first place, you wouldn't have that pain at all. Of course there multiple causes of pain for which a drug could be taken to relieve, but when the primary pain becomes not getting it, then what else do you call it but addiction?

Well, you are confused. You have not studied the subject. Needing a drug because your body becomes habituated to it is not addiction. That need can be cured by detox.

Addiction is when the desire continues after detox. i.e. the pain remains.

I don't see how what you just said is any different than what I said. Although it does seem different than what you said earlier when you said addiction doesn't exist.

[MSimon]

I don't see how what you just said is any different than what I said. Although it does seem different than what you said earlier when you said addiction doesn't exist.

Let me try again.

Addiction is a made up term to describe what is done to relieve the pain. It is helpful if you want to gin up a pogrom on people in pain.

Try this: Drug addict. And then this: Drug chronic pain.

I don't believe in addiction. I have experience with pain.

Addiction is a descriptive not an explanatory word. So I prefer "pain" to "addiction" (novel thought there ;-)

So what is the worry? "Will my kid be an addict?" better question: "Will my kid be in pain?"

So let me say that I prefer explanatory words over descriptive ones. Generally. And most especially in this case.

Addiction is a description of a behavior. Pain is a description of a condition. We would try to keep addicts from drugs. But would we do the same for people in pain? Am I making myself clear here? Once the talk is about cause then the whole idea of "helping" the way we have been is in fact insane.

Worse. A crime against humanity.

"But we didn't know" - you heard that a LOT post WW2. If you are old enough to remember.

[kcdodd]

It seems to me that it is the same difference between using positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. In one case you are already in pain because of something else, and the drug can make that pain go away. The other case is that you take the drug for some reason, and from then on you are in pain because you miss the way it made you feel. In one case the pain has been actually caused by the drug, while the other it wasn't. You're telling me there really is no difference?

[ladajo]

Addiction is a made up term

Giggle. Classic Simon drug propaganda.
Another thread degenerates into his addiction to defend drug use.
Sigh.

[Stubby]

Addiction is a made up term

Giggle. Classic Simon drug propaganda.
Another thread degenerates into his addiction to defend drug use.
Sigh.

Can't help yourself, can you? I seem to remember you swearing off MSimon posts.
Are you addicted to MSimon posts?

[djolds1]

djolds,

Your point about attractors is interesting. I think it has a lot to commend it. And your point about attractors and a random walk (trilobites) has merit.

Thank you.

Overall, I think my analysis leads to the conclusion that there is a broad yet still constrained vector to evolution/ the development of structure.. I.e. teleology/purpose is built in, whether by divine design or not.

[paperburn1]

Addiction is the continued use of a mood altering substance or behavior despite adverse consequences, or a neurological impairment leading to such behaviors.

Addictions can include, but are not limited to, drug abuse, exercise addiction, sexual addiction and gambling. Classic hallmarks of addiction include impaired control over substances or behavior, preoccupation with substance or behavior, continued use despite consequences, and denial. Habits and patterns associated with addiction are typically characterized by immediate gratification (short-term reward), coupled with delayed deleterious effects (long-term costs).

Physiological dependence occurs when the body has to adjust to the substance by incorporating the substance into its 'normal' functioning.This state creates the conditions of tolerance and withdrawal.

Tolerance is the process by which the body continually adapts to the substance and requires increasingly larger amounts to achieve the original effects.


Withdrawal refers to physical and psychological symptoms experienced when reducing or discontinuing a substance that the body has become dependent on. Symptoms of withdrawal generally include but are not limited to anxiety, irritability, intense cravings for the substance, nausea, hallucinations, headaches, cold sweats, and tremors.
Made up term?

[ladajo]

Addiction is a made up term

Giggle. Classic Simon drug propaganda.
Another thread degenerates into his addiction to defend drug use.
Sigh.

Can't help yourself, can you? I seem to remember you swearing off MSimon posts.
Are you addicted to MSimon posts?

Fair enough. THe only limited defense I can mount is that I did not seek engagement. Only an observation.
It is a dilemma. Simon counts on not being challenged when he says things that are suspect at best. It is part of the propaganda process. So he does succeed to some degree when he alienates dissenting voices. That is also part of the process. It is kind of a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario. In any event, on the drug topic he is out to lunch and more or less no longer warrants responses. So you are correct. I did violate my own determination.

[MSimon]

Addiction is a made up term

Giggle. Classic Simon drug propaganda.
Another thread degenerates into his addiction to defend drug use.
Sigh.

Well. I'm generally against pogroms. Round up the .... and give them a good hard taste of government.

The class varies from time to time (Jews, dopers, blacks - the designated evil people who cause the majority of our problems) but it stems from the same impulse. We need an outlet for our daily two minutes of hate. Governments could not be as powerful as they are without it.

But it is kind of odd to have a system that punishes people for harming themselves. Expensive too. And if the American people are correct >80% say it isn't working. Why should it? Police are not noted as being very adept at solving medical problems. How is it justified? The collateral damage of prohibition is ascribed to the things prohibited.

We were smarter than that with alcohol. And evidently we are getting smarter than that about drugs. But as Hillary said, "There is too much money in it." That provides a reservoir of resistance. Especially for all those on the Prohibition gravy train. We saw that at the beginning of pot prohibition where a former Alcohol Agent Harry Anslinger went on to champion marijuana prohibition. Well it was during the Great Depression and he needed work. And at first the targets were mostly Mexicans or Negroes. So he was on safe ground. That did not change until the late 60s.

Now - with more whites targeted - there is a backlash.

This DEA Agent was told to avoid whites because it would kill the gravy train.
http://youtu.be/HmgeCeGk--I

"Stopping Drugs" is what they tell the rubes. But the gravy train is what really matters.

======

Another thing that has changed is that we know about the endocannabinoid system of the body. And our understanding increases every day. The war on drugs has become a war on medicine. And the American people are savvy to that. Roughly 80% favor the medical use of plant cannabinoids. DEA Judge Francis Young said, "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances know to man." In 1988 no less. Proving that you can't fool all the people all the time.

http://rockford-for-safe-access.blogspo ... ience.html

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Max Planck

Evidently the die off is almost sufficient for change.

=====

Prohibitions generally last about 50 years. If we start counting from Nixon's War On Drugs (cira 1972) and add 50 years we get 2022. If we count from the time of Woodstock (1969) the end will be coming sooner. Around 2019. Time is about up.

[Teahive]

But as for a "believable" faith? Faith generally evolve up organically out of the social soil, IMO to fit the needs and aspirations of their formative times.

This is a very interesting point. But what if those formative times, those needs and aspirations, become so far removed from people's lives that they have trouble relating to the faith any more?
At what point can one consider the emergence of a new society that requires a new (or at least massively overhauled) faith?